week we were ordered to leave the Somme. Although I felt
in the mood for sticking it as long as I had the strength to keep
going, yet I must confess the order filled my soul with a gratitude that
was unspeakable. I had been in the Somme campaign three months, and when
our guns swept into position at Martinsaart, my weight was 171; when I
left, I tipped the scales at 145. The men who had been with the guns
there and who know what it is to work 24 hours in the day for many days
in the week, rarely during the three months experiencing the refreshing
rest of a consecutive two hours' sleep, and working like veritable
demons during every waking moment, either at the guns or cleaning the
ammunition, or carrying the ammunition into place,--they will understand
what it means to lose 25 pounds in weight on the Somme.

My uniform was in rags and saturated so thickly with grease and dirt
that for many days it was one of my pet recreations to take a knife and
scoop it by the bladeful out of the khaki cloth. And my skin! What a
hide! The combination of cleaning and repairing guns, working them
constantly, driving horses, observation work, together with the gas, my
body was saturated with a mixture that took weeks to extract.

The cut-up-ground, pock-marked with shell holes as closely as the cells
in a honeycomb, was of course carefully noted by Fritzie's aerial
observers, and they were naturally led to believe that it would be
physically impossible for our batteries to be relieved,--that is, to
retire and another battery take our place. But we camouflaged. Under
cover of a fog we worked like beavers for a day and a night, filling in
shell holes, and made fairly decent roads under the conditions, and one
fine morning, still under the friendly shelter of the fog, leaving our
ammunition behind, we pulled out the gun; the entire Canadian Division
retired and were relieved by the English Tommies.

As we were going out we passed their batteries coming in and it was
heartening indeed to hear the compliments and praises that were showered
upon us by the lads of England, although we had not done a single thing
that they could not have done and done just as well as we, and maybe
better.

In some places where our guns were stationed the ground conditions made
it absolutely impossible to remove them for the time; in such cases the
Imperial batteries left their guns at the horse lines and took over the
Canadian guns, the Canadian gunners takin